Inconsistent MySQL COLLATE errors across databases

Question

I have two physically-separate MySQL databases on which I have to run a single query.

The query has a section of SQL that looks like this:

and foo_table.bar_column like concat('%', rules.pattern, '%') COLLATE utf8_general_ci

It runs fine on database A but on database B I get this error:

ERROR 1253 (42000): COLLATION 'utf8_general_ci' is not valid for CHARACTER SET 'latin1'

If I remove the collation it runs fine on database B but on database A I get this error:

ERROR 1267 (HY000): Illegal mix of collations (utf8_general_ci,IMPLICIT) and (utf8_unicode_ci,IMPLICIT) for operation 'like'

Is there a version of the query that will run on both databases?

Or, is there a configuration I can change on either database to make the query happy in both places?

Update:

Database A is version 5.1.38, Database B is version 5.1.34

Answer 1

Some promising information here http://yoonkit.blogspot.com/2006/03/mysql-charset-from-latin1-to-utf8.html

UPDATE: the suggestions in that link solved my problem, although the syntax is a little out of date and you don't have to convert each column anymore, just the table.

ALTER TABLE the_latin_one CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8;